The Dyadic Perspective on Manager–Employee Feedback Conversations: A Literature Review of Managers’ Performance Feedback Giving and an Empirical Investigation Using the Actor–Partner Interdependence Model

Feedback conversations are manager–employee interactions focused on employees’ performance, in which managers give feedback and employees contribute by seeking or receiving feedback. Feedback conversation theory suggests that these conversations are dyadic because they involve two members, what each member does, and how each member’s behaviour is perceived by the other (Anseel & Brutus, 2019). However, relatively little empirical research has operationalised manager–employee feedback conversations from a dyadic perspective by examining both managers’ and employees’ perceptions together. The aim of this thesis is to examine manager–employee feedback conversations as dyadic interactions. Specifically, this thesis focuses on managers’ perceptions of employees’ feedback engagement and employees’ perceptions of managers’ feedback engagement. It treats managers’ feedback giving, employees’ feedback seeking, employees’ feedback receiving, and satisfaction with feedback conversations as related but slightly different aspects of feedback conversations. Drawing on feedback conversation theory and dyadic research (Anseel & Brutus, 2019), this thesis argues that managers’ and employees’ perceptions may be related through relational dependency and behavioural reciprocity, but that the two parties may not necessarily perceive the same feedback relationship in the same way. This thesis addresses this aim through two main chapters. Chapter 2 uses a narrative literature review approach (Baumeister & Leary, 1997; Ogbonnaya & Brown, 2023) to review managers’ feedback giving. The review provides an overview of how managers’ feedback giving has been conceptualised, measured, and linked with antecedents, outcomes, moderators, and managers’ individual differences in prior studies. It shows that the literature on managers’ feedback giving remains fragmented, with stronger coverage of partial links, such as antecedents–feedback or feedback–outcome relationships, than of complete antecedent–feedback–outcome patterns. The review also identifies themes that help inform the empirical study, including the relational and interactional context of managers’ feedback giving, managerial interpretation of employee signals, manager-side and evaluative contexts, and uneven coverage of feedback-giving dimensions. Chapter 3 reports an empirical study using the Actor–Partner Interdependence Model (Kenny, 1996; Kenny & Ledermann, 2010) to examine manager–employee feedback conversations. Data were collected from managers and employees across Vietnamese nursery schools, resulting in 449 manager–employee dyads in the final sample. The study examined whether employees’ perceptions of managers’ feedback giving and managers’ perceptions of employees’ feedback seeking and feedback receiving were associated with managers’ empowering leadership, employees’ in-role work performance, and employees’ proactive work behaviours. The study also developed and tested a measure of satisfaction with feedback conversations as a relationship-specific evaluation of the feedback conversation. Overall, the findings suggest that managers’ and employees’ perceptions of feedback conversations were related but not redundant. Actor effects were more consistently supported than partner effects, suggesting that each party’s own perceptions were more consistently associated with their own outcome ratings. Partner effects were more limited and specific. The clearest dyadic evidence was found for employees’ ratings of managers’ empowering leadership, especially where managers perceived employees as seeking feedback. In contrast, the findings provided weaker support for associations between feedback conversations and broader employee outcomes, such as in-role work performance and proactive work behaviours. This thesis contributes to feedback conversation research by clarifying and operationalising manager–employee feedback conversations from a dyadic perspective. It shows the value of capturing both managers’ and employees’ perceptions, while also recognising that feedback conversations may not operate as a broad reciprocal process across all outcomes. The thesis also highlights the importance of interpreting feedback conversations in relation to measurement decisions, role differences, and the specific organisational context.<p></p>

Author dc:creator

• Ky Minh Do (21041675)

• manager–employee feedback conversations
• dyadic perspective
• managers’ perceptions
• employees’ perceptions
• Actor–Partner Interdependence Model
• managers’ feedback giving
• employees’ feedback seeking
• employees’ feedback receiving
• empowering leadership
• in-role work performance
• proactive work behaviours
• Vietnamese nursery schools
• narrative literature review

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved
• Open Access after 2027-12-01

Identifier

10779/exe.32531781.v1

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:figshare.com:article/32531781